Case Study: Ta-Ku- Love Again (Feat. JMSN & Sango)

Taku’s track Love Again from the album Songs To Make Up To crosses over the line of many different genres from classical to hip hop and even to soul. He reaches into these genres throughout the album shining new light on the EMP world and creating a very hifi, clean sound. The album was released in June, 2015 and has been a massive hit following its sister album Songs To Break Up To, released in August, 2013.

Genre

Taku’s track Love Again from the album Songs To Make Up To crosses over the line of many different genres from classical to hip hop and even to soul. He reaches into these genres throughout the album shining new light on the EMP world and creating a very hifi, clean sound. The album was released in June, 2015 and has been a massive hit following its sister album Songs To Break Up To, released in August, 2013.

Era

Released in 2015, Taku’s track isn’t so much about whats going on around the world, but more what is happening on a personal level and specifically heart break. The track is open for the listener to empathise with the message and possibly link it back to their own personal issues.

In this modern day and age EMP artists are turning to solely using artificial computerised sounds, but Taku ties in authentic clean instruments such as the choir-esque vocals, piano and strings sections to EMP, mixing it with HI-FI percussion and bass, which opens his music up to a much wider target audience, which opens up new doors into the EMP and pop saturated music industry.

Target Market/Demographic

Typical EMP music is produced for a certain demographic, alluding to the electronic/dance EMP genre and sub-genre. Taku breaches this convention by the way instruments are played. The acoustic, naturalistic way the piano is played, creates a track with groove and realism unlike many electronically produced music.

As the track has ‘pop’ style vocals, pretty much anyone can enjoy this soothing track but as Ta-ku is a known name in the EMP world, the actual demographic is EMP/hip-hop/ listeners.

Cultural Significance

As I said above the song is more of a personal reflection of experience in love so the track doesn’t really have any ‘cultural significance’ per say, but it reflects values with in a relationship such as, loyalty, love and respect.

Para-musical Intent

This track is off Taku’s album Songs To Make Up To. He teams up with Sango and JMSN to conveya powerful ‘I’m sorry’ type message using very warm sounding instruments. By the lyrical content you can deduce that the song is obviously about heart break and trying to re-build a bridge between two peoples relationship.

Aesthetic Quality

Not only is this message shown through the lyrical content, but also the way they are conveyed. The simple stripped back track, clean prominent vocals and choral vocals enhance the mood evoked and give the lyrics more power and emotion. Using a slow tempo of around 78BPM, a stronger emotional connection to all the elements in the track is introduced. Furthermore, the tonal qualities of the piano re-enforces the somber, melancholic message as mentioned above. The song obviously links back to the album title and focus of the album’s theme.

In this track Taku uses organic and synthetic instruments and sounds but only in a synthetic environment. The song has a rich, warm timbre to convey the underlying message. The track denotes a sad mood, yet is countered with more of a supportive overtone.

Although most EMP music doesn’t have much groove Taku plays and manipulates the instruments in a natural way, giving the listener more relatability to the emotions conveyed by the artists.